Europe ready to help more, insist on Asian responsibility

Europe ready to help more, insist on Asian responsibility

SINGAPORE (AFP): Europe is ready to offer more help to
troubled Asian nations when leaders of the two continents hold a
summit next month in London but would insist on "responsibility,"
a senior French diplomat said.

"The Europeans feel that their future, their prosperity is at
stake so they are ready to extend help," Francois Dopffer,
director for Asia and Oceania at the French foreign ministry,
said in an interview here over the weekend.

He said after holding talks with Singapore officials that
European "solidarity" in the crisis must be matched by Asian
"responsibility" in reforming troubled economies requiring
external help.

"Because otherwise, you can put billions of dollars into Asian
economies, and they will be wasted. Only Asian economies can help
themselves, by taking the necessary steps. If they show
responsibility, they can be assured that there will be a steady
flow of help," he said.

Singapore and France are the key countries behind the Asia-
Europe Meeting (ASEM), which held its first summit in Bangkok two
years ago. ASEM is aimed at forging closer inter-continental
links similar to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC)
forum which bonds Asia with the Americas.

ASEM's April 2-4 London meeting is expected to be dominated by
the financial crisis which has shaken Asia's once booming
economies since mid-1997.

"If the Asians show responsibility, they will have no
difficulty in convincing the developed countries which are in a
better situation presently to send money, technical advice,
expertise, open their markets and so on because it's a common
interest.

"If there's no responsibility and the money disappears, and
nobody knows where, the taxpayers in Europe or in America or in
Japan say, 'No!'" he said.

Foreign creditors have praised Thailand and South Korea for
carrying out painful reforms in exchange for bailouts from the
International Monetary Fund (IMF), but expressed impatience with
Indonesia's perceived foot-dragging.

Dopffer was speaking before Indonesian President Soeharto
stepped up a showdown with the IMF on Sunday when he indirectly
criticized the reform program linked to a 40-billion-dollar
bailout.

Ahead of ASEM's London summit, European diplomats have been
stepping up their profile in Asia amid perceptions that Europe
may not be doing as much as the United States to help the region
in its time of need.

Dopffer sought to dispel this view, noting the heavy
contribution of European nations to the IMF on top of bilateral
support for troubled countries.

He cited estimates that the Asian crisis would shave half a
percentage point off an earlier forecast of 3.5 percent economic
growth for France this year, and said "tens of thousands" of
European jobs in such industries as textiles and footwear would
be affected by cheaper Asian exports due to devaluation.

"We are in the same boat, and if we want to stop that crisis
we better coordinate our efforts," he said. "We have to be
helpful, and the Asian economies have to be responsive."

"The big danger in this crisis is that from an Asian crisis,
it becomes an emerging markets crisis. This would have much more,
much larger effects on the world economy," he said.

Last week, a special envoy of British Prime Minister Tony
Blair, whose country holds the EU presidency, carried the same
message on the need for reforms in a tour of Asian countries,
including Indonesia.